Awakening
by 39addict101
Summary: Out of the ashes and rising dust clouds of the broken culture grew the New Civilization. The little bit of humanity that remained in the scarred, terrified bodies that walked the earth had been crushed out by the last explosion. And so the rules of the Community were formed. . . It was into this world that Amy Cahill was born. My 50th story. I love you guys. :D
1. Chapter 1

**Hello guys. This is a very significant story for me. I've been on here for a year and a half, and in that time I have written 49 stories. This is my 50th story.**

 **In June, when I tallied everything up, I had: over 500 reviews, 1,339 views to my profile, and, in June (it's obviously changed now) I had reviewed 268 times. 16 people favorite me and 18 followed me.**

 **Wow guys. I don't know how to express my appreciation to all of you.**

 **To my friends: IBATIL, Champ, innercornerhighlight, Star, Grace, Pen, (the last two left but I still gotta remember them) . . . Ruby, Rival, Scrittore . . . and many more who aren't on T39C fandom.**

 **Guys thank you so much for being on here and supporting my writing (and all my guy troubles . . . lmao, thanks Champ, you're my hero!)**

 **IBATIL, I don't know if you'll see this, but you are definitely my Fanfiction BFF. I treasure every conversation we've ever had . . . from boy to chickens to writing and back again . . . And guys... would you believe it that the first thing I said to her was confront her about her LGBTQ views (which I didn't agree to at the time ...) and then, after that argument, we just clicked and kept talking.**

 **To all of you who have entered the various contests I've held. . . you're the greatest. Thanks. :DDDDDD**

 **And to those of you who have read and reviewed, or even just read my stories, thank you so much.**

 **On to my 50th story . . .**

 **ILY.**

 **39addict101.**

* * *

Red and purple glistened in the droplets of water that fell from the gloomy sky. The sun shone through a tiny crack in the menacing clouds, creating the tiny rainbows in the beads of water that plummeted towards the earth.

The cobblestone streets were slick with moisture. Throngs of humanity rushed over it, scarcely noticing the slipperiness of the stone beneath their black clad feet.

Today the color was black. The women wore black heels and a black suit, with a white rose clipped to their suit jacket. The men also wore a black suit, with black dress shoes and a white undershirt beneath their suit jacket.

Their faces were expressionless, and all faces were shaped the same. Their skin tone was a creamy white, and their eyes peeked through the eye-slots in the porcelain masks that covered their faces.

No one had ever seen any one else's face, except the doctors, and the nurses who saw the young children after they came out of the baby manufacturers.

One young woman remarked to another as they split for their assigned jobs, "I wish they hadn't chosen rain today."

The older woman didn't look at the younger. "Yes. But the Council knows best, I'm sure."

Time had taught those who were older that looking at faces didn't matter. After all what was there to see, except an exact copy of your own face if the person you were looking at was the same gender as you.

A voice crackled over a loudspeaker, robotic, uniform in its manner. "Attention, citizens. Shift 3C begins in five minutes. I repeat. Shift 3C begins in five minutes." The speakers crackled off, and the young woman remarked to no one in particular.

"I wish I could speak like that. No emotion. No life. I'd be promoted so quickly."

An old man looked at her. She looked away, surprised that one of the elders should look at her as if she was an equal. She looked back up, and found him still staring at her.

"When I was young," his voice was rusted with age, "I too had such ambition. Young lady, look at me."

Startled, she met his gaze, his eyes boring into hers with intensity. "Smash that ambition. The Community will not thank you for it. If you have a dead voice like that unfortunate young man in the tower, thank god for it. You may not develop your skills or wish for something you do not have. It will not do. Wishful thinking and development of skills was what ruined the world."

* * *

 _Out of the ashes and rising dust clouds of the broken culture grew the New Civilization. The little bit of humanity that remained in the scarred, terrified bodies that walked the earth had been crushed out by the last explosion. And so the rules of the Community were formed._

 _Likeness was embraced, uniqueness shunned, to the point that someone's "brilliant" idea was adopted._

 _Why not make everyone a porcelain mask that looks identical to the next person's, with the exception of the genders?_

 _Skull lasering was adapted, to shape everyone's skull the same after they were born, when their skulls were still soft._

 _Anyone who was different than anyone else was removed from the community._

 _DNA was studied and humans were bred like dogs to produce children with the same hair and eye color._

 _No one had a speciality in their jobs, save for the announcers, who were known for having dead voices, monotone and similar, so much so that it was impossible to tell one announcer from the next._

 _The houses were the same. The food was the same. The clothes were the same._

 _The only thing that was not the same was gender, for it was the only thing that could not be removed without seriously impacting the community._

 _It was into this world that Amy Cahill was born, squalling, red-haired, and green-eyed, a total contradiction, a mistake._

 _A sympathetic nurse felt bad for the child as she lay screaming in a box to be disposed of, and smuggled her home. She found a family who was willing to replace their dead child that they had not yet reported dead, and it was done._


	2. Chapter 2

Laughter was rare. Funniness was considered unique, and thus, if the people laughed, everyone laughed because everyone was being funny. No one wanted to be considered unique, or have one of their close acquaintences be labeled "unique" either.

It was hard to explain, that forced funniness that wasn't actually funny at all, just a sickening choking feeling of laughter that wasn't happy.

Amy had never understood it, she had only known that she had to laugh when others did. Her face itched under her mask and she squirmed uncomfortably.

Strange, no one else had that problem. She had never seen anyone squirm or scratch underneath their masks, as she did so often.

Her guardian admonished her, saying, "Your mask is for your own, for the sameness of the people." But she had looked scared when she said it.

And then there was the matter of Amy's hair. It was a deep red, like the sky at sunset when the Council deceided tomorrow would be a fair day.

When the sun shone on it, golden strands were illuminated in the bright light, unlike everyone else's mouse brown hair that gleamed dully.

Amy had asked why she was different, and had been told simply that "no one knows. You were born normal, and your hair changed color suddenly, along with your eyes."

The elders had decided three years ago that Amy was to be allowed full citizenship in the community, despite her oddities, but her seed could not be used for another child, lest the "bad blood" be passed on to another generation.

Amy could care less whether her DNA was saved for the next generation. Her female guardian told her it was a rather painful process, involving needles into the stomach and lots of blood.

Someone next to her began laughing and Amy joined in, hating the dullness of it all. The adult in front of the room laughed too and then rapped on the electronic desk with her knuckles.

"Minors!"

The laughter ceased abruptly and the room went still. Amy fidgeted, bored by the lesson on Daily Life in The Community.

As if she didn't know what daily life was like . . . _boring_.

Get up, go to learning center for a period, to eating center for the first meal, go back to learning center, repeat until curfew, and then bedtime.

The boy next to Amy shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Amy was surprised, no one besides her ever seemed restless.

"Please pay attention, minors." The adult said, using the formal term for children who were too old to be called children-past puberty-but not yet old enough to be called adults.

To be called an adult you had to take place in a special ceremony that was secret, reserved, and hidden, although everyone knew it had something to do with your mask.

As soon as class let out that day, the fidgeting boy came up to Amy. "Want to go to the studying edifice with me?"

Amy blinked. "What's an edifice?"

The boy had beautiful amber eyes with a stirring of melted gold in the middle. They were beautiful. They were unique. They were forbidden.

"Edifice." He recited. "A structure that has a roof and walls and stands more or less permenantly in one place."

Amy blinked, which was the only emotion her mask allowed. "Where'd you learn that? I've never heard anyone use such . . . unusual words."

Unusual. That was also forbidden.

"The learning building. You know, the library."

"A library?"

"Yeah, it's filled with books. Lots of books, about before the Great Destruction, the Rebuilding, and finally, our civilization as it is now, the present."

Amy's curiosity was aroused. If this boy knew so much (she still didn't understand where he could have ever learned a word like _edifice_.) perhaps he could teach her, and she could have a shot at some of the more desirable positions, such as Instructor, or, Engineer, rather than Laborer or Preparer of Food.

Still though, she knew she would have to be happy with the position the Council assigned to her.

Why, she realized, if she tried hard enough, learned enough from this boy, perhaps she would be assigned permanently to the Council!

"Yes." She said. "I will accompany you to the . . . edifice."

The boy laughed, and Amy joined in, for once feeling as though there was something funny to laugh about.

* * *

 **I know this chapter seems awkward, with the awkward use of the word "edifice" and the other chapters will the same.**

 **It's written oddly intentionally, to illustrate a point which I hope you'll be able to figure out yourself.**

 **This is kind of a test... like to see if my symbolic-ness can be discovered, or if I'm the only one that sees it...**

 **But anyway...**

 ** **Would you believe I've written and published 175,981 words in the time I've been on here? I just went and checked and my mouth fell open. (less than 25,00 more and I'll be at 200,000!)****

 ** **Thanks for the beautiful and amazing and heart-touching reviews. (iHeartNYCity... we are going to be great friends... I know it!)****

 ** **Guest... thank you for pointing that out! I never did think about it that way and I'll go check it out and see about fixing it. :DDD (Also... this reminds me of Giver too!)****

 ** **Champ, was it really that good? I tried really hard sooo... THANK YOU FOR MAKING ME FEEL AMAZING.****

 ** **Ruby... like the US eh? I like that... I'm glad you can see that it's going to be symbolic.****

 ** **Anywayyy...****

 ** **Toodles!****

 ** **Addict.****


	3. Chapter 3

"Shouldn't we leave and go to eating place now?" Amy asked. "It's long past the eating hour."

The boy looked up from a thick book he was examining. "I usually just stay here." He lowered his voice. "Sometimes they miss me when they close up for the night and I stay all night and read. I've discovered some fascinating things."

Amy sighed. They had been in the vicinity for over an hour and the boy had been absorbed in huge volumes with large pages and old-looking words. She had to admit, she had read some fascinating things about the world before the Great Destruction. (Who had known they had such things called aeroplanes that could soar in the air, and were powered by propellors and jets instead of wings like birds?)

And then there was the dictionary.

Amy had never known there were so many words. And after reading the first fifty 'a' words, something had stirred within her, a thirst for knowledge, a thirst for more learning, a thirst to keep reading and never stop.

But still. Guilt plagued her, and she felt that she needed to leave and go do what the rest of the Community was doing at this time, but the thirst for words won out, and she nodded at the boy. "Let's stay here all night."

The boy's eyes flashed. "I thought you'd say that." Then his eyes returned to the book. "Look at this." He said. "I've been trying to decipher it for the longest time. Maybe you can help me. It looks to be a prophecy of some sort."

Amy leaned over and read,  
"whose demise would set us free  
two masks removed, one forbidden act  
one death, one forbidden life,  
will awaken a people free."

"What's it mean?" She said. "What's demise? And it seems incomplete. Remember Languge, where we learned that all sentences must have a subject and a predicate? The top line doesn't make sense."

The boy seemed confused. "But neither do the other lines, if you look at it that way."

Amy nodded. "Yeah, I guess. But what's it called. It's such a weird writing, why is it arranged like that, broken up, instead of all flowing together like normal?"

The . . . words . . . they weren't _normal_ , and Amy knew that they would be considered "bad".

But they fascinated her and then she realized the boy still hadn't told her what "demise" meant. They all knew what "forbidden" meant, as that was a word plastered on the many documents given to them in school, work, and even the play park where the young children went.

It was "forbidden" to swing longer than three minutes.

It was forbidden to go down the slide more than twice in a single visit.

It was forbidden to slide down the slide backwards, or on one's stomach. The only way that was acceptable was to sit on one's bum and slide, very carefully, to the bottom.

"What does demise mean?" She asked again.

The boy looked up at her from the huge book he was reading. "Check the dictionary."

Amy pulled the thick volume towards her and flipped through its pages awkwardly, still unaccustomed to handling such a huge book, or finding a word alphabetically. She skimmed through the 'd' section, amazed by the many words that flooded her brain and seemed to awaken within her a fresh thirst for more knowledge.

"Deaf. Deprived of the sense of hearing." Her eyes widened, and she looked up at the boy. "Have you ever heard of that before?"

The boy nodded, and motioned with one hand towards the books piled all around him. "In one of these books, yes, but in the Community, no. Never."

Amy inhaled sharply and went back to the book. _Debris. The remnants of something._

 _Debt. Something, especially money, owed to another._

 _Decay. To lose gradually its original form, quality or value._

 _Deception, decline, deface, default, defeat,_ she soaked up the words and their meaning like a traveler sucking down water.

 _Demise_. "I found it!" She yelped. "Demise. Death."

Her eyes met the boy's, and his eyes were wide. "Someone's going to die." He said. "And then we'll be free."

Amy looked away. "But . . . aren't we free?"

The boy looked at her seriously. "No."

He whipped out a pamphlet tucked between the leaves of another large book and handed it to her.

"When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opionions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel the to the seperation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness..."

"What does that mean?" Amy asked, lovingly placing her hand over the text. "It's so beautiful, so . . . I don't know. I don't know the word."

"Powerful." The boy said.

"Yes." Amy said. "Powerful." She let her tongue roll over the word and tried it a few times.

"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," the boy quoted, "do we have that? Tell me." His voice was suddenly rough and shaky with emotion.

Amy nodded, then shook her head, then nodded again. "I don't know the meaning of those words." She said.

"Then for god's sake look them up!" The boy flung the dictionary at her and Amy hurriedly flipped through the pages.

"Immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority, political independence. Freedom of choice." She looked up and met the boy's piercing gaze. "We don't have that, do we?"

He shook his head. "Look up happiness." His voice was cold, commanding, and Amy hurried to do his biding.

"The state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy."

"Do you even know what that means? Do you even know what joy or emotion is?" The boy was yelling now and Amy cowered away.

"I don't know." There was a hot itching behind her eyes and she blinked rapidly, unsure of what was happening to her.

"Emotion is what you're feeling right now." The boy's gaze searched hers. "You're scared and confused and sad because you know you're missing something but you don't know what."

"But what is happiness?" Amy questioned, realizing that the boy was right and wanting to know more.

"Happiness is something nothing of us know. I don't even know what it is. And it's all the stupid Community's fault. Everything is assigned. There's no such thing as Liberty, and I want to know what it's like."

He met her gaze and rapidly changed the subject. "Do you itch under your mask sometimes?"

Amy blinked. "Yes. But . . . no one else does and I don't know how to tell anyone."

The boy met her gaze. "Once you turn eighteen they cement it to your face and the only way to get it off is to rip off the skin underneath and then surgically re-do the entire face." He shrugged. "I mean, that's what I assume. No one has tried to take their mask off before."

Amy shuddered, thinking of the blood and pain and horror of the process to take off one's mask after turning eighteen. "That's why our mask stays on." She said, feeling the familiar feeling when reciting the rules of the Community, discontentment and something else . . . longing. "We leave our mask on for sameness."

The boy ignored her. "I itch too." He sighed. "I didn't show you the whole prophecy. We were destined to be here, and we're destined to fulfill it." He looked into her eyes, his amber orbs searching hers. "Do you want to? Will you?"

Amy closed her eyes and thought of all the times she'd realized there had to be something more. Her eyes sprang open and she nodded. "Yes."

And then the boy's arm reached out and began to pry off her mask. Amy shuddered and shut her eyes.

His fingers grasped the top of the mask, the forehead ceramic and began to peel the stubborn porcelain away from the skin. Amy cried out in pain and fear.

And then, suddenly, his fingers were touching her chin and removing the last of the ceramic, and the mask was gone and lying on the table.

The air brushed her sticky skin and she opened her eyes and reflected how much different the world looked without her mask.

* * *

 **Hey...**

 **pls review**

 **don't got anything to say really...**

 **just ... omg her mask is off!**

 **And also... thanks to my faithful reviewers, Trivia and iHeartNYcity... ily guys.**


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